The Official Bard Enhancements Discussion Thread!

[Chette]

Please, please, double pretty please, drop that Weapon Focus feattax for Warchanters!

Extra emphasis for this.
The devs had talked about how they wanted to lessen the feat requirements/restrictions with the new enhancement system, but they haven't really for warchanter at all. I suppose it's maybe a little better for bardchers, who don't have to take power attack now, and can take weapon focus ranged (I think, haven't checked that) but it's still an unnecessary restriction for melee bards.

My pure bard on live now will be multiclassing in 5 levels when this changes. With the capstones being garbage and so much to gain from other, MUCH better trees, there's no reason to stay pure.

[idle1]

Bard is my favorate DnD class and played through 2 spellsinger lives pre expansion and have healed and cc'd epic groups, so like to think have abit of experience with the class.

I like the merge of virt and spellsinger, but please please please devs, give bards an option for charisma to damage damage for bardic weapons or some sonic SLAs of some kind. Leveling a spellsinger is beyond painful for most people and every other caster like class is getting SLA option now, (clerics, dru, wiz, sorc, fs, and even arti, our odd twin.) It would really be nice to see more bards about again.

If you cant do this then reduce "cast" time of our songs so that we can work with them better in a group, maybe start the song effect at start of song, but keep the animation? Songs are barely used at the moment in most groups I've being in, stuff takes way too long to fascinate for most people, and buffing is a pain. I'd like to feel useful and like a bard again before I poke epic mobs for 10 damage a hit.

[Zaffod]

I have compared the bard(s) I have on live and on Lamannia.

Although there are some newer songs to be had in the two class enhancements trees, I find that these are a bit more soft than from the old enhancement tree. Details have already been described above.

In addition, there is a loss in Skill points that would and could address the some of the loss in ability. i.e. loss in UMD or Haggle... At lvl 23 with all the same equipment and buffs, my "Live" bard has a haggle of 92. On the "Lamannia" side the most at lvl 23 is 85. A 7 point difference 4 of which came from feats/enhancements, 3 from Effects.

Now if we move to UMD or even the added Spellcraft skill, there is a loss of how buffs/offensive spells can enhance game play as well as using Items.

[Gratch]

Iced Edges: The description says: Gain Buff on crit, but in testing the buff only comes on vorpal. Making the d6 damage a lot less often. Please fix to be on crit and leave description as is.

Howl of the North is WRONG in testing. It's giving +1 crit range instead of +1 crit mult on 19-20 as described. I can see 1 crit range added to the item list sheet and I see the same damage whether I roll 14 (the added range# with ESOS) or 20.

These bugs are still there. Please fix the abilities (not alter the descriptions) for the next update. Yes, I did file bugs. Also Inspire Recklessness top tier is only 5% dstrike (not 6% as stated) and does not appear to get bard song duration buffs from other enhancements. It's always the base song amount of time.

On the good side. It does appear Inspire Recklessness stacks with the rapidstrikes (new gear property name for doublestrike) doublestrike %'age. Didn't have any old named gear to checkout.

[Aashrym]

Please, please, double pretty please, drop that Weapon Focus feattax for Warchanters!

/signed. I'm not seeing the need for the feat req at all.

[Steelstar]

Please, please, double pretty please, drop that Weapon Focus feat tax for Warchanters!

You should see some changes to Bard Weapon Training in an upcoming Lamannia patch.

[whereispowderedsilve]

You should see some changes to Bard Weapon Training in an upcoming Lamannia patch.

Could we also pretty please *please* add some *more* positive/devotion healing power to the warchanter tree without having to dip/splash into the ss/virt tree?

It would be *greatly* super appreciated! :P! ! Asking nicely/sincerely/politely! Super thanks in advance! Cheers! :P! ! Keep up the great work!

[Noctus]

You should see some changes to Bard Weapon Training in an upcoming Lamannia patch.

Awesome!

[Chette]

You should see some changes to Bard Weapon Training in an upcoming Lamannia patch.

We look forward to it! Though would still like to see the feat removed.

Also, erm...any chance of getting some developer response any of the comments on the previous 5 pages? I'm pretty disappointed that this has been in preview for 3 months, and your post is the very first one we've seen from a dev in here.

[Atremus]

Will Bard's get Mass Hold Monster? Wail is useless on a bard

[californiapiper]

Epic fail, scrap it all, if you must have the lame tree, do so with current enhancement system.

[Rathic]

I'm sort of confused as to why Warchanters went cold damage focused, I though sonic was the bard damage of choice... That being said, warchanters being the damage focused tree needs a boost to the DCs of their sonic damage spells, something along the lines of "Strong lungs: while under skaldic rage, you add your strength modifier to the DC of offensive sonic spells"
If warchanters are supposed to have strength and charisma they need to be able to get their DCs to a semi respectable level.

also a good sonic SLA wouldn't hurt

[Dylvish]

I'm sort of confused as to why Warchanters went cold damage focused, *snip*

They went with the Nordic Skald theme it seems, for the warchanters melee, hence the cold damage. Thematically its nice I guess, but any + damage given in other trees they should be sure affects both sonic AND cold to help out there if they do this.

[whereispowderedsilve]

They went with the Nordic Skald theme it seems, for the warchanters melee, hence the cold damage. Thematically its nice I guess, but any + damage given in other trees they should be sure affects both sonic AND cold to help out there if they do this.

*IMO* Warchanter bards need more buffing period! >><<! :P! ! Cheers! Go the bards!!!11 ! :P! !

Please put more devotion in the WC tree if at all possible! Asking nicely/politely/sincerely! Cheers!

[MAP1974]

Epic fail, scrap it all, if you must have the lame tree, do so with current enhancement system.

why are you not on ghallanda?

[Pilgrim1]

on live i can get 31 songs as a pure bard. 20 lvls, 5 prestige, 2 capstone, 4 extra song enhancements. On lama i think the max i can get is 26.

I love how you have incorporated music of the dead/constructs into fascinate however the duration is only 30 seconds unlike fascinate. on live the duration is the same as fascinate. fate singers vermin fascination is also only 30 seconds. none of these are extended by song duration increases. Seams like a possible bug. Other add-on's to fascinate are also not seeing increases in duration like sharp notes and haunted (less of an issue because you can increase the duration).

Some other thoughts:

The entire flicker line seams really lack-luster, and while giving my party extra spell penetration I have to spend a lot of AP on stuff that really doesn't seam to do anything. I would consider a reworking of some of this, maybe add in extra songs or something like that.

Also there are melee spell-singers / vertioso, it would be really nice if you could select charisma or str instead of just charisma in this tree.

In deepwood stalker you can get 15 positive spell power by spending 1 action point, warchanter bards need the positive spell power much more than rangers, especially when they heal their party. Please consider increasing the positive spell power available in this tree.

Action boost sprint does not work in warchanter tree.

Boast is a really pore ability, gain temporary HP and get extra threat but the threat goes away as soon as you are damaged (basicly). What is the purpose of this supposed to be, because the only thing it does well is be a action point sink.

Frozen fury: This ability will not scale well past ~lvl 10. consider reworking it.
obstinence: no one likes abilities that do more as you get lower on health, just have tear 3 give a flat +3 to saves and the spell power, no one is going to splash 4 levels of bard for 3 more resistances and bards are really a paper thin class and could use the extra saves.

The entire gathering cold line is very lack-luster and needs some substantial reworking and improvement.


Summary:
I really like the spellsinger bard tree and I cant find anything to talk about in the warchanter tree. I predict that melee bards will be in the spellsinger tree and in whatever class they are mixing with bard because of how bad the warchanter tree is. Seriously, its really bad, you spend a bunch of AP and get... basically nothing.

[nichefish]

in spellsinger tree..

1) enhancements that grants additional song (added in tier 1 and 5 as multiple selection) doesn't work at all.

2) nice to see some vertical prerequisition is removed, which had absolutely no sense.

3) song of capering... has 6 sec singing time (!!) and makes only one target dance? totally ridiculous.
if it goes to live as now, absolutely no one would take it, i'd bet. virtuosos are eventually driven out of game! yay (sarcasm)

4) i'd like to see the enthrallment to be "adds to your fascinate" things.
when fascinate gives +3 damage and appies same -2 debuff to foes, is there any reason to use enthrallment instead of fascinate? (and when enthrallment has even longer singing time than fascinate...)

...at now, virtuoso line is totally gimped (worse than before) and no one would take it, except for those roll-players. (..:d)

in warchanter tree...

song of heroism is only working for one target, for now. it supposed to be apply to all nearby allies.. should be a bug.

[LordDunmore]

I asked this in the main forum, and got no response, so I thought I would try here.
The bard song "Song of Capering" now takes 5-6 seconds to cast, instead of nearly instant in the past, prior to U19. Is this working as intended, or a bug? I was hoping that it might have been corrected in patch 2, but it was not. I have submitted a bug report on live servers. (Can do so here if it would help)

Thanks in advance.

[Jacoby]

Bard Enhancements are currently available on Lamannia.

Please share your thoughts on the Bard Enhancement Trees!

Well I thought I would come back after a long hiatus. I left in a rage over nerfs a couple years ago. I logged onto my virtuoso mechanic build only to see some of the most ridiculous nerfs ever. Why did I come back? I now realize that I made a mistake, especially after reading this litany of nerfs. Almost no one plays a Bard as they are a support tweak class. Now even fewer will if any.

[Ailaesaedol]

Please share your thoughts on the Bard Enhancement Trees!

Why do you guys hate bards so much?